* War - what is it
good for? Yes! We should give peace a chance. Stay tuned for cake love-in. And look at the amazing rainbow cake made by KW ! Look at it! It
is spectacular! That is some serious cake-making right there. LOOK at all those
amazing layers! Definitely a peace cake.

Or you can buy them straight to your device for reading RIGHT NOW.
Or you can borrow them from the library, or steal them from a friend or
WHATEVER. Just read them.

Here are a few key words that we feel paint something of a picture of
why this is so important.

1928. Melbourne. Fashion. Cocktails.

Beautiful young men.

Murder. Blackmail. Revenge.

Theatre. Ateliers. Orgies.

Circuses. Rescues. Dalliances.

Joy. Joy. Joy.

But best of all is Phryne herself.

Phryne is smart and brave and compassionate.

She takes absolutely no nonsense from anyone, but is not above taking a
prisoner or two when absolutely necessary.

She is deadly beautiful and deadly with a pistol.
She has an eye for
fine art and an art for finding delicious young men.

Unlike Macbeth, she does not need a witch's injunction to be bloody, bold
and resolute, nor to scorn the power of man.

It comes naturally. For she is the Honorable Phryne Fisher.

Watch. Your. Step.

We've been all very excited since the TV show was announced. But to be
honest, we've also been a little trepidatious. I mean, that's only natural,
right?

We love Phryne. We've loved her for many, many years. What if TV Phryne
isn't like our Phryne? What if Lin Chung isn't handsome enough? What if it all
looks wrong? What if they don't GET IT?

Well, thanks to the special advance screening of the first two episodes
that some Onions were lucky enough to attend, we say, BE AT PEACE.

The TV series is GORGEOUS. Phryne is very Phryne. Dot is a lovely Dot.
Detective Inspector Jack Robinson is... well, to be honest, he's rather better
looking than we had imagined, so there are no complaints there. Melbourne
is Melbourne. 1928 is gloriously, fashionably 1928. They totally get it. Hooray
hooray hooray!*

But perhaps the most comforting endorsement comes from the woman who
brought Phryne to life. Or, more accurately, the woman who bumped into Phryne
one day on a tram and has been furiously trying to keep up with her ever since.
What does Kerry Greenwood think of the TV series? She loves it.

So paint your parlour walls sea-green, lay in some gin, and make a date
with Miss Fisher on Friday night.

Nobody, in all the long history of her amorous affairs, has EVER regretted
a date with Phryne.

* Lin Chung doesn't appear in the first two episodes, so we reserve
judgement on that score - but all signs point to handsome.

17 February 2012

'How thankful little Phil will be when all this examinating is
over.'
'Examinating? I never heard such a word.'
'Well, haven't I as good
a right to make a word as any one else?' demanded Phil.
'Words aren't
made - they grow,' said Anne.
-- Anne of the Island, LM Montgomery

Mark Forsyth is a man who knows a lot about how words grow. And a lot of
what he knows is delightfully unexpected. His fabulous Inky Fool blog is full of
musings about how one word is related to another word is related to another word
is related to your cousin by marriage. Seriously, the connections between words
are as convoluted and interesting as your family tree, only you don't have to
invite any of them round for Christmas lunch.

We are deeply indebted to Mr Forsyth, as he has given us a name for a
condition that is a perennial problem in the House of Onion. You know how when
you repeat a word too often, or think about it too much, the word dissolves
entirely into its component parts and you can't make it mean anything anymore?
Well Mr Forsyth knows, and he calls it a lapse of meaning. From
his list of other terms we quite like cortical inhibition, mostly
because we can imagine a stricken editor reclining on a psychiatrist's couch,
talking gibberish, while the psychiatrist writes cortical inhibition on
her notepad and underlines it three times.

And, in very pleasing news: there will be laughing, for Mark Forsyth is
funny (and being funny about etymology is not easy). He is also, it seems,
something of a dish.* So in that spirit, we share this video even though it is
not Christmas.**

* The Macquarie is silent on the etymology of 'dish' used in this
manner. Does it just allude to a person looking good enough to eat? When did it
come into vogue? Would you ever use it about someone who wasn't British?

06 February 2012

Karen Healey is partway through a magnificent series of blog posts on Teen Movies with Serious Messages. Go at once and read them. She has already covered several Onion favourites including
Bring it On, Clueless, Empire Records, Saved...

Oh, world, never stop making teen movies.

This got us thinking about how the teen movie and the YA novel are really
partners in awesome.

So here is a list of YA novels we would love to see on the
big screen:

Graffiti Moon by Cath Crowley

Art, love, insecurity, family, friendship, sekrit attraction, confusion,
kissing. Graffiti Moon would fit PERFECTLY into the long tradition of teen films
that take place over one glorious/terrible/wonderful night. This is a NO
BRAINER, Hollywood, get on it.

Being yourself, trying out different selves, starting a new school, STAGE
CREW, love and friendship, sex and sexuality, fitting in, changing your mind,
playing around, oh and STAGE CREW. Why is this not a film already?

Searching for answers, testing friendships, finding your own path,
exploring faith, meeting a boy and then MEETING HIS BROTHER.

A Brief History of Montmaray by Michelle Cooper

Okay, so this one's going to be super-expensive to film, what with it being
set in 1936 in a fictional country which is basically a decaying castle, on a
rock, in the middle of the English Channel. And okay, it might not fit into the
classic Teen Movie mould. But HOW GOOD WOULD IT BE?